The U.S. Army has picked six vendors to build production-ready unmanned ground vehicles for its Infantry Last Tactical Mile (ILTM) program, a push to hand frontline units autonomous logistics and casualty-evacuation platforms that can crawl into contested zones without soldiers. The selected teams — Overland AI, Forterra, American Rheinmetall, HDT Global, Hendrick Motorsports, and Maren-Go — will each deliver four prototypes under prototype Other Transaction Agreements ahead of unit-level testing scheduled for early 2027.
What ILTM is trying to solve
The Infantry Last Tactical Mile initiative targets the deadliest link in ground logistics: the short haul between rear support areas and forward-deployed troops, where drone attacks and indirect fires have made resupply and medevac increasingly lethal. Ukraine's battlefield experience has accelerated Army interest in autonomous "mules" that can carry ammunition, water, and casualties across that last kilometer, and ILTM is the service's most concrete answer yet — a competitive prototype fly-off with production-ready hardware from day one.
Who won a slot — and what they bring
Seattle's Overland AI will offer variants of its ULTRA autonomous tactical vehicle, a 35-mph, 1,000-pound-payload machine already selected by the Marine Corps for the MADIS mission. Maryland-based Forterra brings AutoDrive, the most widely deployed autonomy stack in defense, riding on more than 50 vehicle platforms and 1,100 combat missions. American Rheinmetall extends its S-MET UGV work with Harbinger and the wider Ground Optionally Autonomous Transport line into ILTM, while HDT Global's Hunter WOLF, already in S-MET Increment II, is a natural fit for the payload class. NASCAR powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports and Maren-Go round out a deliberately varied field mixing defense primes, autonomy specialists, and outside-industry entrants.
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Timeline and stakes
Each vendor will build four prototypes for government test and evaluation with Army units in early 2027, with the program office signaling it wants systems that can transition rapidly to production rather than another decade-long science project. The ILTM award lands the same day as a broader Pentagon push on autonomy — the Department of Homeland Security's $1.5B counter-UAS IDIQ, the Joint Interagency Task Force 401 counter-drone stand-up, and the Navy's Blue Water Autonomy IDIQ — that together sketch a Department of War now willing to buy autonomous platforms in fleets rather than pilots.
Reporting based on coverage from Breaking Defense, The Defense Post, and industry announcements.